Ideas Should not be Shielded from Criticism

When Maragaret Thatcher died yesterday, the world was split between those who called her a visionary savior and those who called her a divisive monster. At the heart of this strong division is ideology: Thatcherism strongly embodied conservative ideals of a small state, the power of the free market and muscular militarism, and it stood in direct opposition to the leftist ideals of social solidarity and the primacy of the state in fighting poverty.

This was a classic example of a clash of ideas. Two ideas with strong believers who strived in their intellect and art to promote their worldview and make a mockery of the other’s. Both sides think that they believe in the truth, but both played the game under the same rules: We can debate and criticize and modify our ideas as much as we like…

Back To Lebanon

As I read about the Lebanon’s Tank Top scandal yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of the similarly silly issue with prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) cartoons. If only people made the jump from “This is the Truth” to “This is an Idea that I strongly Believe in” in the way they thought about their religions, there would be much less umbrage and frivolous sensationalism.

Yes, prophet Muhammad is a person whom I greatly admire, and yes it would be wrong to call him names (in the same way that it is wrong to call someone’s mother a whore). But the idea that a prophet should not be drawn in a cartoon is just that: An idea. An idea that, like all ideas in the world, ( socialism and capitalism ), deserves to be debated, questioned and even mocked. Other people strongly believe in them, but they’re just ideas.

A similar thing should be happening with the tank top of Santa muerte. Virgin Mary is a person, and it would be very wrong to call her names. But the iconography and symbols surrounding her are just representations of ideas. If you don’t agree with the tank top, you can argue that it’s inappropriate, you can fight it with its own weapon of capitalism (boycotts..etc). But for the love of God, stop whining for the government to interfere.

✒ Call for Support

I was happy to learn that Beirut spring was selected as a finalist in the “blog of the year” and “best news blog” categories in Beirut’s Social Media Awards.

If you believe that this blog deserves to be recognized as such, kindly vote for it at www.smabeirut.com. It will take two seconds and you’ll have my eternal grattitude..